Typically, electric utilities distribute an alternating current (AC) electric power supply. To avoid converting AC power to direct current (DC) power, many residential electrical loads—for example, most house appliances and tools—operate on AC power. However, appliances and other electrical loads operating on DC power are slowly gaining popularity for two reasons. First, appliances and other loads operating on DC power provide for better efficiency that can result in substantial cost savings. Second, alternative power supply sources such as batteries, solar panels, and other renewable energy systems provide DC electric power. Improvements in the field of AC to DC power conversion are necessary to efficiently utilize utility-supplied AC power for the operation of appliances and other electrical loads requiring DC power.
Some facilities already house electrical loads requiring DC power. Data centers, which house server/computer racks and other computer system devices and accessories for electronic storage and telecommunications, are one example of facilities having loads that operate primarily on DC power. The IT system components housed at data centers operate primarily on DC power. Energy consumption represents the most significant operating cost of data centers, and power consumption efficiency is an important factor in the design of data centers. Accordingly, efficient AC to DC power conversion and power distribution systems (such as DC power distribution) are emerging options to achieve power consumption reductions at data centers.